UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PATRICIA D. LEWIS, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 15-521 (JEB) DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA GOVERNMENT, Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION Plaintiff Patricia Diane Lewis had worked in human resources for the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for decades before her employer first imposed suspicionless drug testing. Presented with a choice between acquiescing to this new requirement — to which she objected on privacy grounds — and being fired, Lewis chose door number two. When Defendant District of Columbia followed through on its threat to let her go, Plaintiff brought this suit. She alleged a bevy of constitutional and statutory violations against a host of defendants, under both D.C. and federal law, all of which relied on the same factual underpinning: the termination of her employment for refusing to submit to drug testing. Over the course of this litigation, Lewis’s causes of action and the defendants against whom they were asserted were whittled down until a jury awarded Plaintiff over $800,000 on her Fourth Amendment claim against the District of Columbia Government. Lewis now seeks close to $1 million in attorney fees and expenses. The Court agrees that she is entitled to a sizeable fee award but takes issue with some of her calculations and requests. It will thus grant in part and 1 deny in part Plaintiff’s Motion and will award her a total $592,719.92 in fees and $53,846.72 in costs and expenses. I. Background Given the nature of this Motion, the case’s procedural history plays the starring role in the following rehearsal of the facts, relegating the conduct that led to this lawsuit to second fiddle. The Court thus directs any readers interested in the background of this case to the Court’s now-extensive repertoire of prior Opinions on the subject. See Lewis v. Gov’t of the Dist. of Columbia, 315 F. Supp. 3d 571 (D.D.C. 2018); Lewis v. Gov’t of the Dist. of Columbia, 282 F. Supp. 3d 169 (D.D.C. 2017); Lewis v. Gov’t of the Dist. of Columbia, No. 15-521, 2015 WL 8577626 (D.D.C. Dec. 9, 2015); Lewis v. Gov’t of the Dist. of Columbia, 161 F. Supp. 3d 15 (D.D.C. 2015). A long-time government employee, Lewis served as a human-resources management liaison for OCME. See ECF No. 101 (Pl. Mot.) at 2. In 2012, the City moved the Office from its Massachusetts Avenue home to a new forensics building as part of an effort to consolidate a number of departments under one roof. See Lewis, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 574. This relocation spurred the D.C. Government — acting on an order from then-Mayor Vincent Gray — to institute mandatory criminal-background checks along with drug and alcohol testing as a condition of the employees’ transfer to the new facility. Id. Lewis objected. She first raised her privacy concerns verbally at the meeting in which OCME informed its employees of the new policy. Id. at 574–75. Despite repeated requests from management, Plaintiff continued to refuse to sign a ...
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